Something Better than Before
by Secret Agent Smut Girl
Summary: Learning to live and love with a heart turned to stone.


**Title: Something Better then Before  
**

**Author: SecretAgentSmutGirl**

**A/N:** Some more prose on the subject of transitioning from becoming into being.

_We expected something, something better than before. We expected something more._

_**Start a War**__ –The National_

It rained on the day her mother died.

After three days of gray skies and humidity heavy in the air, the sky tore open and flooded Tokyo for nearly an entire day. She remembers that her father's assistant had taken care of things at the hospital and taken her home. He'd given her his black umbrella, never touching her. When they reached the black company car she had been dry eyed and he's been drenched by the rain.

Rei remembers thinking that Tokyo had cried for her mother that day. Tokyo had cried all the tears that her barren tear ducts couldn't produce. She doesn't know how her father reacted to the news of her mother's death, he had been absent for days after the event. Though she doubts it occurred to him, she hopes that he cried for her.

**000**

When her father left her on the steps of the Hikawa Jinja in the care of her grandfather, he hadn't attempted to comfort her or look her in the eye. There were words, it was a business transaction at best until he shook her grandfather's hand and promised to see her on her birthday. That April when the sakura blossoms began to emerge, the black company car arrived carrying disappointment and her father's assistant.

Kaidou was his name and he presented her with Calla lilies, a small allowance and well wishes from her father. The next year it was the same, and every year after until Usagi came into her life along with the grand destiny before them.

Slowly she relearned about love and affection from the ridiculous blonde. She learned to value stillness through hours spent in Ami's company, and to understand the concept of warmth and comfort through Makoto's friendship. In Minako she found more, that elusive other half that tickled at her mind and made her dream about wild love affairs and another blonde. A treacherous man who stilled her heart in truth during her last life, just as her mother's death had stilled her heart to love in this life.

For a little while it is enough.

**000**

The day they finished high school Rei spent the evening at Minako's house. Her parents were away in Los Angeles, Mina had explained in an offhand way, but it always seemed like Mina's parents were away. They had always planned on having their last big blast at the Crown, but it turned out that everyone else got swept up into other plans.

Ami's mother took her to dinner, Makoto had made excuses of her own and Usagi was with Mamoru. Together, Rei and Mina walked to the closest coffee bar to order espressos and people watch. Mina liked to imagine lavish stories about every sad character that walked through the door and it was as though they were eavesdropping on a play. Minako loved the fiction.

Rei prefered to stare into her coffee cup and let her sixth sense tell her the truth about people.

After coffee they wandered the dark streets back home, silent for the most part under a heavily full moon. The espresso was still thick on her tongue, when Mina stopped walking to gaze up at the moon. Rei stopped too, looking at her friend instead of the sky. "What's wrong?"

Mina wrapped her arms around herself, steeling herself before she answered. "Do you ever wish we had been born normal? Without some grand destiny, I mean."

"No," she answered, resolute. "It's all I have."

**000**

During university Rei sang every Thursday at the cafe where Makoto waited tables.

She had never lost her love of pop idols but her charm was part raw emotion and haunting voice and part untouchable, razor-sharp words. She always drew a crowd of the angry, the wounded and the loveless. Heartsick girls in love with the idea of love, and boys were just drawn her as was the proverbial moth to a flame. Usagi never missed a gig, starting rumors that she was the elusive lover and the petty, imaginary indiscretion tickled her pink.

Michiru performed on Fridays, manipulating and deceiving the crowd with her beauty. She drew the art kids, the poets, the lovers and those of a Sapphic persuasion. On those nights Haruka would join Usagi, adding cigarette butts to the endless, empty cups of coffee.

Two unremarkable women in a smoky café; poised and so ready to become more.

**000**

There was unrest in the streets the weeks before Rei turned twenty-five. There was a storm coming. More accurately something was coming to fruition.

She'd eaten and slept in front of the fire for three days, divining the signs and omens with the same stern discipline she used to govern her life. Her grandfather never asked questions, just brought tea and rice that sat untouched until he came with the next meal.

Perched beside from the flames, Phobos and Deimos sat like silent sentinels at the doorway.

Haruka and Michiru swore that the problem was coming from within. Hotaru said nothing, but kept her glaive close. Only Setsuna was absent, ominously absent but Usagi reported that she had treated with Mamoru behind closed doors.

Three days later the fire flared, startling Rei from her trance.

"What did you see?" Makoto was at her side in an instant. The priestess hadn't even known she was there. Plied with tepid tea and dry rice, Rei tried to form the words. She tried to explain what she'd seen, and how they could fight it.

All she managed to say was, "Shittenou."

**000**

Some say it started with a sickness.

Others say it started with a Molotov cocktail through a government window. Whatever the catalyst, the roots had been twining around society for years. There was a plague, a riot, an apocalypse but in the end the Earth slept. In its sleep the planet healed.

The planet thrived.

After a century the sphere of power that shielded the Earth receded. The energy drew back to expose the lush greenery and the stirrings of civilization. Slowly the power crept back to its source, across the oceans and back to Japan. To what had been Tokyo, but as the shield shimmered out of being it showed not the city that had been but the future.

A palace of crystal, a city made of crystal with four collapsed girls in fuku at each corner.

When Rei opened her eyes on the brand new world all she could see was the sacred fire, as though she had never left it but the surroundings were all wrong. Shimmery crystal and open air instead of rice paper and wooden beams.

She blinked, but nothing changed and she couldn't stop the tears that leaked helplessly down her cheeks.

**000**

Everywhere there were signs of change. The world was quiet, peaceful in ways that she had never imagined possible outside of Hikawa Jinja. Usagi had come into her own, using her judgment and the crystal with a self-possession she had never had before possessed. There were deliberations on infrastructure and defense. They had a beautiful future to ensure.

Through it all Rei tended the fire. She reflected and labored to restore the shrine of her youth. Mostly she meditate, kept vigilant watch on the omens and signs. She waited, bided her time until he would come to her.

After a week a wind kicked up and the crows returned to her side.

A day later he came.

Jadeite looked tired. He wore a uniform of white which made his eyes look like chips of wet slate. When he entered the shrine he bowed low first to the fire, acknowledging her guardians with a nod. She rose to meet him, never letting her eyes leave his. While they had bodily met, it had been centuries since she'd come face to face with him.

All of him.

He reached out, tilting her chin upward with his palm. His thumb ghosted across her jaw. Unconsciously she pressed into the touch and his lips quirked. "Hello, Firebird."

Fickle destiny, finally presenting her with a man who came back and she could see the soul shine through his tired eyes. She could see all of him, so she surrendered to the brave new world and let her latent heart warm in her chest.

She let herself breath out and said hello with her lips on his.

**FIN**


End file.
